


laugh and sneer, you prisoners

by tanteitwopoint0



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Character Study, Gen, also this isn't shippy, it's mostly just these two, momota is mentioned Once but only in passing, please don't think of it as shippy, these two would be Bad together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 01:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12266016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanteitwopoint0/pseuds/tanteitwopoint0
Summary: [[ MAJOR V3 SPOILERS ]]She crafts the greatest villain ever.





	laugh and sneer, you prisoners

**Author's Note:**

> LMAO okay like i didn't know what the fukc to title this but then kiki and kirby on twitter were like "use songs" and i'm like "huh..........." anD THIS SONG....... FITS im crying. undead enemy is a good song !!! and fits pretty, decently so i'm surprised and pleased thank you y'all
> 
> also i wrote this really really quickly thinking about ouma and shirogane and they're a good duo why does no one ever talk about them i don't ship them because that'd be Ugly but there are a lot of parallels and shit between them .. which is good shit. love it
> 
> this is messy but it turned out alright i think

Shirogane Tsumugi is chewing at the gnarled nub of her pen from the corner of the room when she first sees him.

It is the last day of auditions. The room buzzes with the executives, her higher ups; last she was in the room they rejected her game— her beautiful, stunning pitch— and her heart wrenches yet again with bitter fury as she watches them from behind glazed frames.

She’s still here, though, of course. Perhaps she was laughed off stage for her story, but they respected her ability as a character writer, brings her to auditions still for what little skills she has. That felt more like an insult than the compliment they insisted it was, but no one disobeys Team Danganronpa.

She sniffs at that for the umpteenth time that day, and turns her head to face the newest auditionee with a fresh click of her pen.

He stands in a halo of light, a small, dark smear surrounded by white. He is scrawny, unassuming, curled dark locks brushed at the tips with a violet that mirrors in his eyes, wide and doe-like and so, so young. His lips are a thin line, with a hint of white as his teeth nip against his lower lip, and Shirogane’s eyes trace slowly down the side of his plain seifuku to his shuffling, quivering feet.

She clicks her pen again, placing it between her teeth and tugging sharply at it.

She curls a lip around it.

How _pathetic_.

As the empty hall crackles with the empty echo of moving parchment and the sound of their empty silence, Shirogane clicks her pen and peers up at his features, again, at his baby face and terrified eyes, and wonders why he’s here. She gauges him as unimportant, _boring_ , simply another pathetic face trying to plaster itself into paper fame and she looks away, tugging harder at the pen in her teeth.

Then, he opens his mouth, and she finds herself staring at him, again.

“I want to save everyone,” he says, in a carefully crafted, serious tone, before his eyes widen and he reduces into a quivering stutter, retreating back into himself as dozens of gazes piece into his features all at once. “I— I mean… I want… I want to be a h—hero. Like— like Nanami-san… I want to bring… to bring the, um, the class together, the best I can, a— and defeat… I want to help everyone defeat the s—season’s ringleader…”

Silence. There always is; saying too much would be unprofessional, but she’s been in the business long enough to know what it means. He’s pathetic; he’s weak. He looks like nothing special, and yet when they politely excuse him and he scampers out of the room, Shirogane watches his retreating figure, unable to help but feel _just_ otherwise as she absentmindedly twirls her pen between her fingers.

His eyes were swimming with lies, and Shirogane wonders what would happen if she twisted those lies into something beautiful.

She thinks of the last audition, of the boy who wanted to die.

Her pen finds itself lodged between her teeth again; she sniffs. _Fine_. If they won’t give her what she wants— she’ll _take_ what she wants.

And _they’ll_ be her masterpieces.

(Her jaws snaps, and she almost bites the end of her pen off.)

 

 

 

 

 

Ouma Kokichi laughs at the face of Gonta’s brutal execution as the world crumbles around him, and Shirogane watches him with wonder.

And disgust, of course. She adorns that mask practically flawlessly— it’s mirrored on everyone else’s face, and it’s no feat simply reflecting it back on her own. Besides, he was absolutely  _despicable_. Only delightfully so.

Though, she wonders how easy it’d be for him. Perhaps she’s crafted him to be the perfect villain, to be the successor to the greatest one of them all, but even she never thought of him so _heartless_. And so _early_ in the game, nonetheless; wasn’t this supposed to be the chapter five affair?

Well, whatever. She was never quite one to look the gift horse in the mouth. Expect the unexpected, as they say, and she’s rather pleasantly surprised with the results. Perhaps he was evil, but he wasn’t _boring_ , and last she checked the viewers were practically _gobbling_ him up.

After all— who didn’t like a good villain? Heartless as he was, he’s certainly captured the hearts of several more fans, and she can’t say she finds herself complaining, not at all.

He’s got what he wanted, anyway. Uniting the students; though he never specified exactly _how_.

He never specified whether against him, or with him. And so she pits them against him, brings them together against his evil ways— the code he’d adhered so violently to he breaks all on his own like a dry, ashy twig, and she expects him to tumble and tumble before he _drowns_ in delicious despair.

Until they’re all against him. Against the villain he was always meant to be.

But he’ll never be the hero he so _desperately_ wants to be.

 

 

 

 

 

( She stares blankly at the hurriedly put together flashback light in her hands, knuckles white and breath tense, teeth clenched and stiff as her throat and insides _burn_.

He _won’t_ be. He’ll _never_ be. He’s a villain, through and through.

That’s what she created him to be.

 _That’s what she created him to be._ )

 

 

 

 

 

She feels victorious.

Almost, almost. _Almost_ she found herself with an invalidated game on her hands. _Almost_ she found herself outwitted by her own creations. _Almost_ she found he hands slipping, nearly falling into an oblivion weaved by the boy who was supposed to be her _puppet_ , the boy who was supposed to be the villain of her  _story_ and not the villain of the one who penned it, the boy who nearly brought the end to everything she loved, to the world that brought her her _everything_.

And she feels _victorious_.

She nearly fell, nearly _died_ , found her heart tight in her stomach and her throat constricted with ( _his_ ) invisible hands. Never thought she’d find herself scrambling to keep her game alive, and yet here she was, hastily bringing together a flashback light, dragging everything back to the beginning, panting as she narrowly avoids utter destruction at his hands. 

And when Momota says Ouma never found the ringleader, she feels a surge of pride.

He never found her.

 _He never found her_.

She’ll acknowledge his brilliance. She’ll acknowledge their— their little _game_ , that’s what he’d like to call it, probably, their little bout of chess or whatever before he practically _snagged_  the board out from between her hands.

And, _fine_. As she trembled along with her fellow classmates as he _stole_ her title from her— not from fear and despair like _they_ did but instead with burning _anger_ , she vowed to take it back.

And she did.

She _did_ , and now everything’s back to normal, and Shirogane has her game back and _everything's okay_.

 _And he never knew who she was_.

Shirogane is blank faced as she slips away easily from the others, but the moment she is alone addicting laughter bubbles in her stomach, intoxicating her insides as her lips curl upward and she throws her face into the sky as she absolutely loses her  _mind._

For all his brilliance, he never found her. For all he’s managed to slip beneath her radar, _he never found her._

And he didn’t ruin her game. He  _couldn't_ ruin her game.

He’s put several obstacles in her way, yes, and yet— _here she was_. Their hero was _dead_ , they all voted _right_ , and Saihara, that _fool_ , strung right along her wishes and brought her their hero in hypothetical shackles as he tore off the top of their dumb little Schrödinger's Box and exposed their silly little plan and she got _exactly what she wanted_.

Unlike _him_.

( He fought so valiantly and desperately, she'll acknowledge that. _Fine_. But for what? Glory? Or the hatred and suspicion of his classmates, even after his apparent plan of  _justice_ was exposed? The ending of a game? Or another trial and two more dead bodies rotting in his lifeless hands? ) 

She laughs and laughs and laughs. She laughs, sighs, smiles broadly at the stars and sky she’s painted and strung together herself.

That was just a bump in the road. In the end, it’s just as she says. _It will be_ as she says.

Shirogane Tsumugi got everything she wanted.

( She tells herself that one, last lie, before her world completely comes to an end. )

 

 

 

 

 

 

( And then she dies, just like him.

A villain, forgotten, _alone_ , crushed beneath a stone weaved with all their lies and mistakes. )

 

 

 

 

 

 

He smiled, when he died. ( Though— she’d never know. )

Shirogane simply looks up, with a blank face, and quietly accepts her fate.

**Author's Note:**

> shirogane is so much fucking fun to explore love this girl


End file.
